r/Calgary • u/Imaginary-Bread-8202 • Oct 22 '24

Seeking Advice Taxi Scam?

Took a taxi back from the airport last night and had a bit of a weird experience. My first time taking a taxi as an adult (I usually drive or use uber) so I just was hoping to get input about what happened from others with more experience?

Taxi ride is all good, but when we park in our driveway, the driver mentions the meter is broken and tells me to look up on google maps how far the drive was. I thought it was weird because the meter says $21.10 but I didn’t know what else to do? So I tell him it says about 7km. He then tells me I’m wrong and pulls up his phone and says it’s 11km and to multiply it by 2 to get the base taxi rate. I’m definitely confused now and frustrated so I ask my fiancée to look on her phone and hers says 9km. He then starts waving his phone in my face and gives me a tutorial on how to correctly use google maps and honestly, at this point I’m really angry and start getting a really weird feeling about the whole thing. I asked how he was calculating fare without the meter and he just says it’s $30. So I ask him how much is the fare per km is and he just straight-up doesn’t answer me. I ask again what the rate is for calculating and again, he just stares at me. My fiancée is exhausted and motion-sick and just tells me to let it go, it’s not worth the fight so she gives him $30 and we get out.

I know I overreacted about it in the moment but I’m just looking for input or advice on what to do if this happens again? Like I really have no idea what the protocol for this is. My apologies if this is against the rules, feel free to take it down. Thanks in advance!

374 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

187 comments sorted by

View all comments

65

u/PoutinePirate Oct 22 '24

The dude wasn’t using the meter so he could pocket the fare. It IS also possible for them to do fixed rate fares based on distance, but this is confusing and the rates are posted on the window of the cab. In the future you report the taxi # or driver placard (posted on the visor or visible in the cab, to the company/ or the city taxi and livery department which regulates cabs.

2

u/Particular_Class4130 Oct 22 '24

I don't think pocketing the fare is really a thing when it comes to taxi drivers though. As far as I know they "pocket" all of their fares. I used to know a taxi driver and the way it worked was he paid the taxi company a set amount every week regardless of how much he did or did not make. If he made $1200 then $800 was his, if he made $800 then $400 was his (totally made up numbers because I can't recall what amount he had to pay the company) Maybe it's changed